


that's a kindness you can't afford

by betweentheheavesofstorm



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alive Renfri | Shrike (The Witcher), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, kind of, we all need to go feral sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23221231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweentheheavesofstorm/pseuds/betweentheheavesofstorm
Summary: as someone who knew absolutely nothing about the witcher prior to watching it, you cannot imagine my immense disappointment that Renfri only appeared in the first episode.Geralt doesn't kill her. It's almost a shame - if anyone was going to, Renfri had figured it might as well be him.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Renfri | Shrike
Comments: 10
Kudos: 75





	that's a kindness you can't afford

**Author's Note:**

> Do I know anything about The Witcher, beyond what I remember from bingeing it in a weekend? No.  
> Have I had a couple of glasses of wine to combat the social distance blues? Yes.  
> Do I want a spin-off entirely about Renfri? Also yes.
> 
> [ title comes from Hozier's It Will Come Back cos I'm a cliche ]

He doesn’t kill her.

He really, really _should_ kill her. She’s given him enough reasons, the number one being the bloodied knife that she’s still holding. But instead he just uses the base of his palm to knock the blade from her hand and then she’s standing there, defenceless and furious and ready to run into _his_ sword if that’s what it takes.

Snarling, she throws herself at him, trying to grab one of his weapons, hitting out blindly with her fists, hoping that if she can just hurt him enough he might hurt her back. But he just stands there, unmoving, until she collapses, exhausted and hysterical, at his feet.

‘You should kill me,’ she rasps, hating the plea. This is what she’s reduced to, begging a fucking witcher for mercy. ‘I’ll kill Stregobor. I’ll kill _everyone.’_

He just glances over his shoulder. Townsfolk have started gathering at the far end of the square, watching the combatants with wary interest. Another few minutes and they’ll have a proper audience.

‘What? You going to tell me I don’t have to do this?’ She laughs, the sound harsh and animalistic.

Geralt doesn’t respond, but sheathes his sword and keeps a firm hold on hers. Finally, he speaks.

‘Stregobor will kill you. Trust me when I say you don’t want that.’

‘I can handle him.’

He just pauses. Again. And then, ‘Come on. If we’re going, we’ve got to go now.’

 _We._ Oh fucking hell. There she was, thinking that he saw her. Maybe he had, for all of five minutes, and then decided that princess and monster were incompatible and that the right course of action was to _save_ her.

Apparently satisfied with his response, Geralt starts walking. He doesn’t seem too bothered by turning his back on her, even though they both know she could turn it to her advantage in seconds.

Renfri watches him go. Sweat is running down the side of her face and the wound on her shoulder is starting to sting. The longer she waits the more she feels uncomfortably like a person again, instead of the _thing_ she had been a minute ago.

Then the realisation hits – that Stregobor’s not coming, was never coming, and there’s nothing she can do to lure him down from that fucking tower. It shouldn’t have been a surprise; he sent other men to fight his battles before, didn’t he? He’d wait until she’d murdered all of Blaviken and use that to recruit some more mercenaries. Look at her, she’s out of her mind, she’s a monster, she needs to be put down. She needs a witcher.

Her legs wobbling slightly, Renfri gets to her feet and follows Geralt. He’s cut a wide enough path through the crowd, all of whom are being mercifully quiet. Some of them are looking at him, some at her; whatever the direction of their gaze their expressions are of scared disgust. Whatever. She’s had worse things said about her. Geralt probably has too. Not a lot of places are all that welcoming to witchers. Only marginally less so than they are to girls born on the wrong damn day.

She makes it until they’re clear of the town limits before she starts running. Geralt doesn’t stop or try to follow her. It doesn’t even look like he’s tracking her, which is impressive. Either he thinks she’s not about to go after Stregobor or he reckons the mage can take care of himself. Both are probably true.

She doesn’t stop running until she reaches the stream, where she crouches over and plunges both hands into the freezing water. The cold shocks its way through her numbness and then she’s on her knees, retching, well aware she’s not doing anything to keep her injuries clean. Maybe she can wander the woods until she becomes delirious. The water is clean enough and she can hunt – oh, fuck, Geralt still has her weapons.

That sodding witcher. She shouldn’t have fucked him. He was pretty and it was easy and it made her feel better for all of a little while. Has he figured it out, that the decision to fuck him and fight him were made at the same time? He seems like a smart guy; he’ll probably get there.

She shuts her eyes so tightly that the muscles hurt and splashes cold water on her face. It gives her the blurriest jolt of a vision and for a second she’s convinced that she’s dying, lying in the mud with her own dagger in her neck and Geralt holding her. The image disappears as quickly as it arrived, leaving a sick feeling in her stomach and a gnawing doubt as to which one of them had stabbed her in that scenario. Nor can she shake the sense that that was what was _supposed_ to happen – she should be bleeding out in the dirt and he should be off somewhere else, cleaning her blood off his sword.

Her whole body tips forward into the stream, her eyes snapping open just in time to see the rushing water. The cold slaps into her until that’s all she can feel, nothing but the icy sting and the warm blood still running from her shoulder. She lies there, crumpled and inhuman and hurting, until she’s not thinking of anything at all.

She finds his camp a few hours later. It wasn’t hard to track down, not when she’s followed him before. Roach notices her before Geralt does, flattening her ears but not straying from her spot.

Geralt is sat by a small fire, roasting a small rabbit and cleaning what Renfri immediately recognises as her own dagger. Her hand flies, instinctively, to her throat, and then drops, embarrassed by the motion.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d come back,’ he says, without looking up.

‘I nearly didn’t.’ She sits on a log opposite him, trying to hide how cold she is. Her clothes are still soaking and while the evening is mild, it only takes the slightest breeze to send a shiver through her. ‘What happened to making choices?’

‘It’s not always impossible to reconsider.’

‘Why?’

He looks up, meeting her gaze. The firelight glints off his odd golden eyes. ‘There’s a difference between being a monster and wanting to be one.’

‘And you know which I am?’

‘I didn’t take Stregobor’s money, did I?’

‘Yeah, but that might have been because you wanted to fuck me. And now you’ve done that.’

He lets out an amused huff. ‘I wouldn’t be very good at being a witcher if I went round fucking monsters.’

Somehow, that’s it. Neither of them says anything else, not when the rabbit is done and he carefully slices off half to hand to her. Not when he goes rummaging through the saddlebags to offer her a slightly smelly but dry tunic. And not when they lie down, next to each other but not touching, in a sheltered part of the clearing.

Geralt falls asleep quickly. Maybe it’s a witcher thing. Renfri shifts, still not quite comfortable. It all feels like a bizarre parody of the previous night, when they’d curled up so comfortably in each other’s arms.

She folds her arms across her chest in an attempt to trap a layer of body heat. He’s given her a dressing for her shoulder, but she’s feeling it even more keenly now with nothing to distract from it. It’s probably the first time she’s been bandaged by the person who wounded her. That’s a weird thought.

She hasn’t yet decided if she’s going to be there when he wakes up. In a lot of ways, it would be simpler if she wasn’t. That doesn’t mean she’s going to keep pursuing vengeance – Stregobor _is_ too much of a coward to be worth it – but it means they never have to address what happens next. She’s got the uncomfortable feeling that Geralt would let her tag along if she asked. A sword at his back and warmth in his bed, what man’s going to say no to that? Even worse, she’d enjoy it, at least for a while. Until the yawning void in the middle of her chest opened so wide that she had to kill the next thing she saw, and then Geralt would see what a big fucking mistake it had been not stopping her when he had the chance.

Tiredness has crept up on her, but when it arrives it does so with full force. One minute she’s lying there, nervous energy still bouncing through her veins, and the next her body is so heavy that she’s sinking through the leaves and through the ground, till her eyes close and the earth absorbs her completely.

For once, the dreams she has are not bad ones. She sees Geralt again, as she did the previous night, embracing a blonde little girl in woods that are not these ones. She sees a mage with violet eyes whose power leaves an electric taste in her mouth. Then she just sleeps, too deeply for anything else to reach her – and wakes to the sound of Geralt making breakfast.


End file.
